Learning To Be Uncertain

 ABOUT TWENTY FIVE PERCENT of the American people, whose intelligence nobody ever went broke underestimating, prefer inventing and embracing their own nonsensical fantastic version of reality to expending teh effort necessary to comprehend objective reality. This high percentage is alarming; we live in a culture in which much of the population rejects demonstrable reality, and substitutes a self invented fantasy world, then defends the fantasy world as is science and the facts supported their fantasy, if only the massive mainstream science profession would stop conspiring to stifle the fantasy makers and stop blacklisting their truth. In point of fact, mainstream science, the scientific establishment, never stifles any truth or refuses to investigate anything. All of these crazy conspiracy theories and alleged phenomena so zealously advertised by the alternative reality community in fact have bee exhaustively researched by mainstream science, without any substantiating evidence to support them, and this fact is sufficient to arouse the ire of thee alternative reality folks. The main complaint registered by the alternative reality people is that mainstream science is narrow minded, unwilling to consider concepts outside the box. this is patently false. It is the pseudo scientists and researchers who are closed minded, refusing to accept even the remote possibility that any of their paradigms are wrong. meanwhile, mainstream science goes steadily about its business, investigating worth investigating, and honestly reporting the results. Suppose, for instance, that a paranormal researcher offers the following assertion: There are many species of intelligent life in the galaxy which are genetically related to us. and that's it. Nothing further. No photos, no evidence of any sort, just this extraordinary statement, this incredible claim, without the slightest supporting evidence. they always seem to have some reason why the evidence cannot be provided just yet, but will be, at some point in the near future. Thus, the claim is a fraud, ridiculous, without support.That's just basic science, basic fairness. but it would be so simple, so easy to make this claim credible. Simply add the word "perhaps" to the sentence, anywhere, and suddenly you have a reasonable statement, and honest one. but they cannot bring themselves to do this. there's something about the ego of the pseudo researcher which prevents the use of the word "perhaps". Their self esteem requires that they present all claims of fact with complete certainty.We could all learn a lesson from this. Humans by nature think hey know more, and pretend to know more, than they actually do. We could all use a good healthy does of perhaps.